Thursday 19th May 2022

I had a wonderful day today visiting three Government Schools with Gobi, and there is so much to write about these visits that I will use today's and tomorrow's blogs, as I am only writing up the Government School Visits Report tomorrow. There was a huge contrast in today's visits, which I will need to explain for you to appreciate the disparity between primary schools and secondary schools.

We first visited Luccombe T.M.V. School, a secondary school that had 7 teachers taking part over the three 6-month Training Programmes, including Ms. Kamalini, who had conversation sessions with Val Mason and Julie Hayward, and Mr. Mangalakumar (Manga), who had conversation sessions with me (see attached photos). Of course, I saw Manga just the other day (see blog on Monday 9th May).

Originally, Luccombe was an all-through primary and secondary school, but its status was changed, so that it became just a secondary school (currently 398 students), and the primary students (currently 97 on roll) were moved to a building just a short walk away from the secondary school, which is where we went next, receiving a very warm welcome, including some hand-made flowers.

I was quite shocked to find the conditions that these teachers and their 97 students are working in, as they only have three classrooms to cover Grades 1-5, but far more concerning than that was the fact that they have no electricity or water and only one toilet between them all - basically a school that would not pass even the most basic of Health and Safety or Environmental Health checks in the UK.

On a positive note, it was lovely to meet Ms. Suganya, who is having conversation sessions with Anthony Birts. Mrs. Vjayakanthy, the Principal, who doesn't even have a proper table in her office, asked if I could help them to buy tables and chairs, which would cost around 100,000LKR (about £250), so I am putting this appeal out there to anyone who would like to support this little school.